Things I love about the beach

June 20, 2007

We go down to the beach with our friends Matt and Jenn every year, recently during the week of July 4th. Usually we pick the weekend July 4th is closest to, take whatever time off we need to, and spend a long weekend. This year, July 4th is a Wednesday, which kind of awesomely means we get to go down Tuesday night and spend the better part of a week.

Inevitable New York drugs making it down to North Carolina – funny story here. I’m not really a drug taker, even in college I used to partake in several things, but only really occasionally with friends. I get high way too quickly, for example, and marijuana and alcohol for me are a deadly combination that usually lead to me spending most of the night in the bathroom. But at the beach I suspend my rules, which has led to three notable events. The first was a bunch of mushrooms leading me on a trek to find firewood, only to bring back a 20-foot long pressure-treated 2X4 unsuitable for any kind of burning and pilfered from a construction site. The second was a combination of cocaine and a full liter of Maker’s Mark on the rocks that led to unbelievably bad behavior on my part, a 7 AM bedtime, two visits from the other kids to check whether I was still alive, and waking up at 9:30 PM the next night. The third was taking quaaludes for the first time, speaking in such abject slurs that no one could understand me, and Jason almost falling over the balcony. Of my best 10 experiences being fucked up, at least 6 have happened at Jenn’s beach house.

Memories of my friend James and my sister and her boyfriend, drunk on the beach, deciding on a “David Hasslehoffathon” which we decided involved jumping off a 10-foot pier into the sand and slow motion running across the sand until we fell down laughing. This was repeated several times.

My father letting me talk him into a post-hurricane 10-foot sea when I was 6 years old, sitting on his shoulders, so I was over the waves as he jumped but he kept going under. I think he almost drowned trying to make me happy. I love my father.